Director of ecology research lab at SRS quits

COLUMBIA, S.C. - The director of an independent research laboratory at the Savannah River Site has resigned after challenging federal plans to close the facility.

Paul Bertsch, director of the Savannah River Ecology Laboratory for eight years, says he will leave the post later this month but hopes to stay on as a researcher - if the lab stays open.

Bertsch had been fighting to restore federal funding to the lab, which studies the effects of the nuclear weapons complex on the environment around it.

Historically, the U.S. Department of Energy has provided most of the funding for the University of Georgia to run the lab. But federal officials have said the lab hasn't held up a pledge to become financially self-sustaining, and the facility had been set to close last month.

Lawmakers from South Carolina and Georgia have written to U.S. Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman, requesting that he intervene after federal funding was cut off.

Last week, Bodman wrote to U.S. Sens. Lindsey Graham and Jim DeMint of South Carolina, and Saxby Chambliss and Johnny Isakson of Georgia, saying that the lab failed to honor its commitment to become financially self-sustaining. In the letter, Bodman said lab managers "have failed to pursue adequate project financing from other sources as they agreed to do."